Handling Planning

This part applies the motion planning technology, developed within MOLOG, to the needs of the logistic applications which are the aim of MOLOG. It will lead to the design and implementation of a general tool to support the choice and the use of several handling devices (such as cranes, carts, or rolling bridges), to carry out transportation tasks of loads inside a complex industrial installation.

Introducing the handling machinery into motion planning leads to the following problem: given the description of the environment, the description of the load to move and a description of possible handling devices, the handling problem is now to produce a path for the load and a handling device itself. Handling devices complicate the problem in three ways: (i) they restrict the possible motions of the load, (ii) their shape can change during the motions, and (iii) the solution may require several handling subsequences, with possible different devices, allowing grasping changes. While fully automated solutions are beyond the reach of the currently available technology, we will develop advanced handling tools. To this end, we first extend the rigid body planner to planning separately the motions of the handling device and of the load, we combine both planners into a planner solving (i) and (ii), but require the help of the operator for (iii).

Finally complementary research is carried out to develop more powerful handling planning algorithms.